Looking for recommendations for some funny short story collections or authors

[genesis_pig]

Looking for recommendations for some funny short story collections or authors.

Thanks in advance

[Blue Steel]

Looking for recommendations for some funny short story collections or authors.

Thanks in advance
Philip Roth's short stories are sardonically funny, as are John Cheever's and Raymond Carver's. Flannery O'Connor uses significantly dark humor in her short stories as well.

[YesNo]

Woody Allen has some funny stories or perhaps they are better called "essays". There is also Garrison Keillor.

[genesis_pig]

Thanks.
Anything in particular I should be looking of the recommended authors.

[YesNo]

I don't have any specific titles by Allen or Keillor. Just start sampling it. Some of it should be entertaining right away.

If one goes beyond stories, I think Paul Feig is also funny. He wrote and directed the recent movie "Spy" and he has a couple of books out. I remember liking parts of "Superstud: Or, How I became a 24 year old virgin".

[RetsixArp]

Looking for recommendations for some funny short story collections or authors.

Thanks in advance

I always thought Donald Barthelme (1931-1989) was the best. His long outta print Guilty Pleasures. Among the hi-lites: The Teachings of Don B.: A Yankee Way of Knowledge, a wonderful parody of the Carlos Castaneda books. Much of his stuff is collected in Forty Stories & Sixty Stories.

[genesis_pig]

Thanks to all.
I'll look into the recommendations.

If there are more, please do let me know.

[YesNo]

There is also Anita Loos. I enjoyed "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes". It was way better than the movie.

[TheFifthElement]

Revenge of the Lawn by Richard Brautigan. Funny is difficult as people find different things funny. Tove Jansson, perhaps.

Oh, not exactly a short story collection, more of a linked series of stories, but Simon Crump's My Elvis Blackout is pretty fun.

[genesis_pig]

Though not a work of fiction, Oliver Sacks' The Man who mistook his wife for a hat is really funny.
Any more non-fiction works like these, collection of essays perhaps?

[TheFifthElement]

I also enjoyed The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Oliver Sacks had a very personable way of conveying the complexities of human brain function (and misfunction). Some non-fiction suggestions:
Jenny Diski - On Trying to Keep Still (or any book by Diski. She has a very droll style)
Alain de Botton - The Art of Travel (similarly, I have found all de Botton's books fun)
Katie Roiphe - In Praise of Messy Lives
Dervla Murphy - Full Tilt

[ennison]

Voinovich, Leacock, Neil Munro, S Toltz

[Ecurb]

Woody Allen's first three books are hilarious. Some of the pieces are more of essays or "routines" than "stories" -- but if you like to laugh, you'll like "Getting Even", "Without Feathers" and "Side Effects". His more recent book, "Insanity Defense" is good, but not at the level of the earlier three.

[genesis_pig]

Woody Allen's first three books are hilarious. Some of the pieces are more of essays or "routines" than "stories" -- but if you like to laugh, you'll like "Getting Even", "Without Feathers" and "Side Effects". His more recent book, "Insanity Defense" is good, but not at the level of the earlier three.

Which one of the three do you recommend the most. The descriptions online doesn't make my decision easier.

[genesis_pig]

Voinovich, Leacock, Neil Munro, S Toltz

Literary Lapses by Leacock caught my interest. Thanks.

[Ecurb]

Which one of the three do you recommend the most. The descriptions online doesn't make my decision easier.

All three are equally good.

[Eiseabhal]

Another thread brought to my memory a novel called "Thoughts of Murdo" by Iain Crichton Smith. It is very funny.

[YesNo]

There is also the Thurber Prize for American Humor where you can find authors that might be interesting: http://thurberhouse.org/2015-thurber-prize-for-american-humor.html

I am reading Sloane Crosley's "How Did You Get This Number".

[bounty]

genesis--if you don't mind what I would called "embellished" non-fiction, and you like stories of kids (and then adults) growing up and making their living in the outdoors, I heartily recommend Patrick McManus. he's written a handful of books where each chapter is essentially a stand alone story of some aspect of his life. there are numerous occasions throughout his books where I laugh out loud at either what he's telling, or how he's telling it.

[genesis_pig]

genesis--if you don't mind what I would called "embellished" non-fiction, and you like stories of kids (and then adults) growing up and making their living in the outdoors, I heartily recommend Patrick McManus. he's written a handful of books where each chapter is essentially a stand alone story of some aspect of his life. there are numerous occasions throughout his books where I laugh out loud at either what he's telling, or how he's telling it.

Actually, was looking for something of that sort.

Thanks a lot.

[genesis_pig]

All three are equally good.

No You only get to choose one
:biggrin5:

[bounty]

if you end up trying one (the first one I read was called "the night the bear ate goombaw" and that particularly story in the book is soooooo funny!), id love to hear about it...

[genesis_pig]

I got Horse in my garage, plan to start it in a while.

[genesis_pig]

But keep the recommendations coming.. I have a vacation planned soon..
Would be nice to catch up on a lot of reading.

Anyone read Book of other people by Zadie Smith. Is it any good?

Also any recommendations on Absurdist short story collections.. Regarding plays, I have read Ionesco & Beckett.

[genesis_pig]

I am currently reading Jack Handey's What I'd Say to the Martians.

I highly recommend it.

[bounty]

genesis, did you end up reading the horse in my garage?

[genesis_pig]

Yes, it was good. I am trying to get more of McManus' work

[bounty]

interestingly enough genesis, I think the only one I don't have is the one you do!

am glad you liked it....

[OrphanPip]

Stephen Leacock's stuff is available on this site, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is his most well known work. It's often remarked that Leacock's humour was full of kindness and genuine affection for the small town people he satirized. Some people find Leacock distasteful though because of his position as an advocate of imperialism and aboriginal oppression while being a major political philosopher in Montreal and prominent mouthpiece for the Tories at the turn of the century.

http://www.online-literature.com/stephen-leacock/sunshine-sketches-of-a-little-/4/

[MrFarr]

It's subjective but try:

Mark Twain,
Kurt Vonnugut,
David Sedaris,
Dorothy Parker,
George Saunders
Donald Barthelme

[Alex White]

Robert Benchley is a good one, one of my favorites. Mark Twain, also.

[wordeater]

Roald Dahl, Nikolai Gogol and P. G. Wodehouse are the masters of the funny short stories.

[Raheem]

I'd recommend "Adverbs" by Daniel Handler. It's considered a novel, but really it's a series of interconnected short stories. And it is often hilarious, as well as moving and all kinds of other superlatives.

[Doffo]

Id recommend Consider the lobster by Wallace. Hillarious and insightful.

[ennison]

My daughter sent me that set of essays from Canada. Clever, yes. Comic? No. Trouble with humour is not only that Americans cannot spell it but what I laugh at you frown at. An insurmountable problem I guess.

[desiresjab]

[QUOTE=Blue Steel;1307242]Philip Roth's short stories are sardonically funny, as are John Cheever's and Raymond Carver's. Flannery O'Connor uses significantly dark humor in her short stories as well.[/QUOTE

I have read all of Raymond Carver, including his poetry. I remember smiling but I cannot remember guffawing with Carver. I might have, though. I cannot remember every story. His darkness drew me most. He is one of the few people we shared air with who it can be said of, he is absolutely already in the high literary canon to stay, and was even so during his liftetime.

[desiresjab]

Thinking harder, I do remember delicously funny moments in Carver. He had the abilty to be so good you had to laugh. The way he got into his characters' heads could be funny, the way they struggled internally over petty things we truly understood.